The Lily and the Cross: A Tale of Acadia

by James De Mille

The additional burden which he had been forced to assume overweighted very seriously Claude's horse, and signs of this began to appear before long. No sooner, however, had Claude perceived that it was difficult to keep with the rest of the party, than he concluded to shift himself, with Mimi, to the horse which Mimi had left. This was one of the best and freshest of the whole party, and but a slight delay was occasioned by the change.

After this they kept up a good rate of speed for more than two hours, when Claude once more changed to another horse. This time it was to Margot's horse, which had done less thus far than any of the others. Margot then took the horse which Claude had at first, and thus they went on. It was a good contrivance, for thus by changing about from one to another, and by allowing one horse to be led, the endurance of the whole was maintained longer than would otherwise have been possible.

But at length the long and fatiguing journey began to tell most seriously on all the horses, and all began to see that further progress would not be much longer possible. For many hours they had kept on their path; and, though the distance which they had gone was not more than twenty-five miles, yet, so rough had been the road that the labor had been excessive, and all the horses needed rest. By this time it was midday, and they all found themselves face to face with a question of fearful import, which none of them knew how to answer. The question was, what to do. Could they stop? Dare they? Yet they must. For the present they continued on a little longer.

They now came to another open space, overgrown with shrubbery, similar to that which they had traversed in the night. It was about two miles in extent, and at the other end arose a bare, rocky hill, beyond which was the forest.

"We must halt at the top of that hill," said Claude. "It's the best place. We can guard against a surprise, at any rate. Some of the horses will drop if we go on much farther."

"I suppose we'll have to," said the priest.

"We must rest for half an hour, at least," said Claude. "If they come up, we'll have to scatter, and take to the woods."

With these words they rode on, and at length reached the hill. The path wound up it, and in due time they reached the top.

But scarcely had they done so, than a loud cry sounded out, which thrilled through all hearts. Immediately after, a figure came bounding towards them.

"Hooray! Hip, hip, hooray!" shouted the new comer.